All You Ever Wanted
by Lila2
Summary: Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.
1. Part I

**Title:** "All You Ever Wanted"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others

**Spoiler: **"Carnal Knowledge"

**Length: **one-shot

**Summary: **Blair can't be the girl her father wants her to be but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

**Author's Note:** I put a moratorium on "Gossip Girl" fic but then I saw The Black Keys last week and they pretty much blew me away and per usual, inspired me to write fic. This is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile, but finally took root and evolved into a full-fledged story. It was supposed to be a one-shot but the middle sections began to run away with themselves so I had to break it up. Hope it works. Title, cut, and breaks courtesy of The Black Keys. Enjoy.

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**I. Ain't it just like dying? Except you can still feel the shame...**

Blair destroys Ms. Carr (again, for real this time) and Chuck asks her to the prom. She doesn't know whether to feel honored or disgusted but still says yes; she doesn't know anything else.

She and Serena are trying on dresses at Bergdorf's before she has the guts to second guess herself, ask the questions she doesn't usually think let alone allow to slip from her lips. "Chuck asked me to the prom," she says and waits for the other shoe to drop, but Serena doesn't even look up from zipping her Nina Ricci gown.

Finally, Serena blows blond hair off her face and responds. "That's good, right? You're still in love with him. You should go with him to the prom."

Blair bites her lip, fiddles with a length of Zac Posen silk. "He didn't ask me until after I made Ms. Carr wish she'd never been born." Serena's face goes blank at the mention of the one teacher to believe in her and encourage her and rip her heart out in one fell swoop, but Blair presses on. This is her crisis; she needs an answer. "Do you think that's weird?"

It takes a moment, but Serena rolls her eyes and sighs. "B, wreaking destruction is like your mating call. You know you wouldn't have it any other way."

Blair wants to believe her, but she's not so sure anymore. "Is it what I want?" she inquires and her words are soft but there's no missing their meaning.

Serena rubs Blair's shoulder affectionately and turns back to the mirror, a Marchesa falling to the floor in curve-hugging folds. "Chuck is your prince and he's asked you to the prom. Why are you over thinking this?"

Blair forces a smile, tries to be the girl her father wants her to be. "A girl only gets one prom. I want mine to be for the right reasons."

Serena stands beside her, her red Marchesa shimmering in the light beside Blair's green Zac Posen like a tacky Christmas tree. Blair can't help but wrinkle her nose in disgust; she hopes it's not a sign of things to come. "You're going with the guy you love." It goes unspoken she can't say the same about her own date. "Be happy with what you have."

Being happy has never come easy to Blair but it's never too late to try. She smiles again and clutches Serena's hand in hers. "It's going to be the best night of our lives."

---

Prom isn't the best night of her life but it comes pretty damn close. She shares a limo with Nate and Vanessa and Serena and a boy from Collegiate and Chuck hovers constantly at her side. He drinks, but not too much, and tells her that she's beautiful and perfect and she even thinks he means it.

When Headmistress Queller calls her name and slides a tiara through her hair, she curls into Nate's arms like they're where she's always belonged. Chuck never takes his eyes from her but they burn with happiness rather than jealousy. She remembers that afternoon in the dressing room, the prophecy she unleashed, and she's Blair Waldorf so she pinches herself to prove one of her dreams is actually coming true.

She waltzes with Nate, his own crown sliding down his brow and into his eyes, and his hands are loose at her hips but she recognizes the look in his eyes. He's been waiting for this moment, expecting it since the moment he was born a Vanderbilt and an Archibald all rolled into one, and he accepts his destiny with the nonchalance he's afforded every other milestone in his life.

"I always wanted this to happen," he tells her and she has to blink back tears because all she's wanted her entire life was a future at Yale and a prince to whisk her off her feet and Nate Archibald to truly love her. There's a framed acceptance letter on her bedroom wall and Chuck lying in wait and Nate holding her close like she's the only thing that matters. "Even after we broke up, I only wanted to spend this night with you."

"It was inevitable, wasn't it?" she manages to say. Ten years she loved him and he barely noticed her existence and three months down the line she might never see him again. She's Blair Waldorf; she expects her dreams to come true in any way but how she intended them to unfold. "You and me, prom queen and king?"

His arms tighten around her and he pulls her close and it's like falling two years into the past. "I love you, Blair. I'm not in love with you any more than you're in love with me, but I love you. I'm sorry for my part in it all." He ducks his head and presses his lips feather-light to her forehead and she's had sex with this boy and felt every inch of his body beneath her hands, but she's never felt so close to him before.

Her father comes to mind, the disappointment in his eyes and the shame in his voice, and she finally gets it. "I love you too," she whispers. "I'm sorry too. I never should have lied. I know that now."

He smiles, the kind of smile that lights up his face and draws crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and readjusts her tiara. "We should have had this conversation months ago, but I'm still glad we had it. I wouldn't want to go to college with this hanging over our heads."

She smiles in return, because he's Nate and he makes her feel that way, easy and relaxed and like everything will work out, and straightens his crown. "I'm going to miss you, you know?"

"I'll only be a phone call away. You can call any time," he promises and she knows he means it. The Non-Judgmental Breakfast Club has been out of commission for a while but they're working on repairing their bonds.

College is an endless summer away but only three months down the line. She pulls him closer and rests her head against his shoulder, his heart beating even and steady beneath her ear. Her life is about to change; she hangs onto what she knows a little longer.

---

Chuck tells her he loves her the morning after prom.

They're in his old suite at the Palace and the morning light is just creeping in through the curtains and casting a golden glow over the angled planes of his face.

Her hair is a mess and she knows her make up is smeared but her heart beats faster when he cradles her face in his hands and tells her she's beautiful. "I love you," he whispers, so soft she can barely hear him, and then he says it again, shaky but louder, and gently brushes his lips against hers.

She wants to say it back. She's said it once and she should be able to say it again, but the words get caught in her throat. He's the same Chuck, but she doesn't want to be the same Blair. The words no longer hold the same meaning.

She pulls him closer and sighs as his bare skin slides over hers. This is what she knows, this is what they do. She can't have anything more.

---

She ends things a week after the prom.

She does it in public, so there can't be a scene, and he sits across the table from her, mouth agape, and simply stares as the tears roll down her cheeks. "I can't be with you anymore," she tries to explain. "We're going to college and everything is going to change."

He finally snaps out of it and reaches across the table to grasp her hand. "College isn't for three months. Why end this now?"

She remembers, their fingers entwined after Victrola and his hand clinging to hers like a lifeline on the roof, and she pulls back. She needs a clean break to sever the tie. "We hurt people when we're together," she says. "We play games with people's lives." Her father flashes before her eyes, and all she can see is his back as he walked out of her life again and again and again. The first time, she knows it wasn't her fault; she can't say the same about the last time. "I need to be a different person. I need to be better."

His hands slip into his lap and he looks like he might cry. "We can be better together," he says. "We can help each other."

She shakes her head. "I need to do this alone," she whispers and he doesn't say anything in return. She's glad he isn't fighting; she wouldn't be able to do this if he tried harder.

She walks away and won't let herself look back.

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	2. Part II

**Title:** "All You Ever Wanted"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others

**Spoiler: **"Carnal Knowledge"

**Length: **one-shot

**Summary: **Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

**Author's Note:** Second part of my latest GG fic, focusing on Blair's first month of college. Thanks for the support for Part I. Enjoy.

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**II. All hands on deck now. The sea is getting rough again…**

She spends the summer in France with her father and with each passing day the light that only shines for her returns to his eyes.

She reads by the pool and tutors at a local community center in the afternoons (to improve her French, but her father doesn't have to know otherwise) and her free time alternates between texts from Serena and phone calls from Nate (true to his word, like a good Vanderbilt) and avoiding message alerts from Gossip Girl. Graduation has come and gone but there's no regime to step in until fall and she knows her former classmates are passing their time chronicling Chuck's conquest of Manhattan, Ibiza, and St. Tropez.

She walked away from him but it doesn't hurt any less. It doesn't mean anything more. He loved her last summer but slept with someone else. History has a way of repeating itself even as the circumstances change.

She ignores the ache in her chest and concentrates on the love in her father's eyes.

She's trying to change but she's still Blair Waldorf; she picks battles she knows she can win.

---

Her father is the one to put her on the plane to Yale. Dorota packs her things and Eleanor buys her a new wardrobe, but it's her daddy who kisses her cheek one last time and wipes tears from his eyes as she sets out to start her new life.

"I'm so proud of you," he says into her hair and she thinks he might actually mean it; she hopes he does. "You've come so far and it's only going to be better. You'll see. College is a whole new world, Blair-Bear. You're going to love it."

She knows she will. Yale is the one thing she's wanted her entire life. It can't be anything less than perfect.

---

It's the most disappointing moment of her life when she finally steps foot on Yale's campus without anything to prove to anyone in particular and discovers she doesn't like college. Worse, she kind of hates it.

Freshmen aren't permitted to move off-campus and she lands a double with a girl named Caitlin from Encino. Blair doesn't know much about California, but she does know the valley and grits her teeth even as she pastes on her brightest smile. She shakes her roommate's hand and tells herself it will work. It has to work. She can be friends with a girl who doesn't know Manolo from Mui Mui and clearly dyes her hair in her bathroom sink. She's Blair Waldorf. She can be friends with anyone because they want to be friends with her.

College isn't Constance and her floormates aren't Hazel and Penelope and Iz. They don't see her charm and they don't fall in line. They don't have a single thing in common, even Caitlin, and her bright, shiny new existence feels more like a prison and less like a future.

She and Caitlin share a room but not a life and on the fourth day of the second week she curls into a ball on her bed (hard and long and way too narrow) and calls Serena in a panic. Her best friend picks up on the third ring and laughs a breathy hello. "What's up?"

Blair stifles a sob, tries to get it together. "I hate it here, S," she says because Serena is her best friend and has always loved her for exactly who she is. "I want to come home."

"Oh, Blair," Serena sighs. "It can't be that bad."

"It is that bad. No one here gets me." She pauses, doesn't bother hiding the tears any longer. "No one here cares about me."

"College is an adjustment," Serena insists. "We talked about this over the summer, remember? You're completely on your own for the first time. It's going to take some getting used to."

"I miss home," Blair whispers. "I miss my mom and I miss my apartment and that creepy hotdog vendor on 87th who used to whistle at us on the way to school. I even miss Gossip Girl. I miss mattering. I don't matter here." Serena doesn't answer and Blair closes her eyes because she got it all wrong. She wanted to go to college to move forward; Serena wanted to start over. "You don't miss her at all, do you?"

"I like that no one knows who I am," Serena says carefully. "I tell people my name and it doesn't mean anything more than a new person to meet." She pauses, and her voice is barely more than a whisper when she continues. "I don't miss anything about New York."

Blair misses everything but she's in New Haven not the Upper East Side and there's nothing more to do than more forward. "Help me, S," she cries. "Help me like it here."

"You have to let go. Life isn't a movie, Blair. You have to work for your happy ending."

"I don't understand."

There's a lot of noise in the background, laughter and people talking loudly, and Blair's suddenly so jealous her stomach tightens up and her chest constricts and it's like that weekend last year all over again. She closes her eyes, counts to ten. It's not Serena's fault that nothing comes easy to her. "You've built up Yale in your head for so many years that it can't possibly meet your expectations. So you don't fit in. Try to be more like them and see where it takes you."

"You think I should change who I am."

"I think you should open yourself up to new things. You're always so consumed with everything working out the way you think it should that it rarely happens in a way to make you happy. This is your chance to be anyone you want to be, Blair. Try on a few different people. You might be surprised by what fits." There's more laughter in the background, and then a squeal, and then Serena back on the line. "Look, Blair I have to go. Pancakes just took off and we need to find her – "

"Pancakes?" Blair asks. She knows Brown's kind of a hippy school, but even hippies should know where to draw the line when it comes to naming their children.

"Remember my mentor, Summer? He's her rabbit. I really need to help her." Serena sighs, because she's being a bad friend. "Blair, you're going to be happy but only if you let yourself. No one's going to beg you to be their friend. You might have to do the asking yourself."

They say goodbye and promise to talk soon and as she's hanging up Caitlin comes back from wherever she's been out having fun. She mumbles a hello and brushes by only to stop in her tracks when Blair doesn't say much in return.

"You okay?" she asks and Blair forces a smile and blinks back the tears; after eighteen years, she's a master at wearing the right mask at the right time.

"Of course," Blair says in return and hopes the third degree will end so she can slide under her extra-long sheets and nap away the hell that is college.

Caitlin pauses as she tugs on a cardigan, bites her lip as if the fate of the world rests on the decision she's making. "A friend of mind is playing tomorrow night at the Tune Inn." She pauses, bites her lip again, but pastes on a smile to rival Blair's the morning they met. "Do you want to come?"

Blair wants to say no. She'll ruin her shoes and damage her hearing but she has nothing better to do. Serena isn't there to hold her up. She has to take care of herself. "I don't have anything to wear," she protests feebly and winces inwardly at how pathetic she sounds, but it triggers something within Caitlin because the smile on her face widens into something real.

"You can borrow something of mine," she assures Blair and wraps her hands around her wrists to pull her to her feet. "Come on, I'm on the way to meet Jess and Emily for dinner. You're coming."

She chokes down a salad (not even Serena can convince her that dining hall food is a sacrifice she should be making) but forces a smile all the way through. Jessica is from Nebraska (on scholarship) and Emily is from the Upper West Side and they know people in common (people with the last name Humphrey) but she tries to be the girl her father sees and looks past the poverty and terrible taste in friends to see what's underneath. Jessica is a film encyclopedia (Audrey is one of her favorites) and Emily is one of the funniest people she's ever met and by the end of the meal her side hurts from laughing so hard and she has a date to watch "Sabrina" the following afternoon.

For a moment her chest constricts, because she remembers Thanksgiving three years earlier and doubling over with laughter while Nate and Serena tried to drown her in her own bathroom, but the moment passes and she can breathe again. Her past is locked away safe in her heart but there's room for more memories.

When she slips beneath her extra-long sheets, it's the first night she doesn't cry herself to sleep.

---

She hates the band (too much angst, too much irony, too many useless keyboard players), but she almost has the time of her life.

They go to a party afterwards and Caitlin introduces her as "my friend Blair" to a boy she wouldn't touch with a ten-foot-pole.

She forgets about the boy but keeps Caitlin.

She stops hating college and starts trying to make it work.

---

She has a routine: lunch with Caitlin on Tuesdays and Thursdays, movie nights with Jess on Wednesdays, Sunday brunch with Emily no matter how hungover they feel. She has dinner with the whole group most evenings and they catch up on what they did during the day and what cute boy caught their eye and she stops worrying about how hard it was and concentrates on how easy it's becoming.

She spends her free time bouncing between lame rock shows and reading on the quad and study sessions in the law library because it's quieter and the boys are nicer to look at.

She lets Caitlin make the plans and follows along like a good solider; it's a welcome change to let someone else lead.

She wears jeans every now and then and stops worrying about ruining her shoes.

She attends parties in dorms and apartments and even a field one starry night. The rooms are crowded and the people are sweaty and no one has any idea who she is but they all seem happy to meet her; she even enjoys meeting some of them.

It's not what she's used to but she doesn't complain. After a few weeks, it stops feeling like a person she's trying on and starts feeling like her life.

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Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	3. Part III

**Title:** "All You Ever Wanted"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others

**Spoiler: **"Carnal Knowledge"

**Length: **one-shot

**Summary: **Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

**Author's Note:** Thank you again to everyone supporting this fic. Multi-part stories are hard for me so I appreciate the patience and consistency. This is the chapter where my OMC comes into play, but no worries! My philosophy on original characters in fic is that their purpose is to support existing characters so he won't be taking over the story in any way. Enjoy.

**

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****III. You see him out the window. Even when you close the blinds…**

She meets Sam her third week of art history.

It's an upper level class but the only one that fits her schedule, and because she's Blair Waldorf and still has a few tricks up her sleeve, she talks her way into a course usually reserved for seniors and juniors.

She might be Blair Waldorf but she's still a college freshman and she's nervous when she walks in the day drop/add ends and her heels clatter against the floorboards and she's the only one wearing a skirt in place of jeans and riding boots.

She pastes on her brightest smile and chooses a seat in the back while everyone else takes a seat in front. They all know each other and spend the few minutes before class chatting about a new art exhibit in New York or what they did the night before, and she takes out a pen and taps impatiently against her notebook. She's getting used to it, but she still hates being out of place.

Five minutes before class starts a tall guy with shaggy brown hair and dark blue eyes drops into the seat beside her.

She does little more than stare. There are four empty rows between herself and any other student and this Dan Humphrey knock-off has chosen the seat to her right. She grits her teeth and turns to him with her brightest smile pasted on her face.

He meets her with a smile of his own. "Is this seat taken?"

She gestures to the near miles of empty seats around them. "It's not, but there are forty other places you could sit." There's some anger, fire in her voice, and it feels good. She's trying change but she doesn't have to lose herself entirely.

He only smiles brighter and leans back in his seat. "There are, but then I wouldn't be sitting next to the prettiest girl in the room."

She can't do more than blink at him before letting out a disgusted laugh. "Does that line actually work?"

"You tell me," he says and holds out a hand. There's a trace of red paint on its back but his fingers are long and tapered and seem otherwise clean. "I'm Sam."

She pauses for a long moment, because she hates artists even as she's trying to embrace all kinds of people, but slides her hand into his. "Blair."

"Nice to meet you," he adds and doesn't release her hand. "So….did it work?"

"Did what work?" she asks and tugs her hand out of his. He doesn't grab it back, but he does wrap his arm around the back of her chair. He's on the skinny side but still somehow broad and she can feel the warmth radiating through his t-shirt. She glances at the crowd that knows each other through and through; it's nice to have someone on her side.

"My line, Blair. Did it work?" She can't help but like the way he says her name, the "R" dropping off at the very end no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

"I don't know," she says lightly. She likes this game; she's missed it. "What can you tell me about this class?"

He picks her hand up again and she surprises herself when she lets him; some of her nerves slip away as he traces her fingers with his. "Armstrong is tough but fair. Do what she says and you'll get the grade you want."

As if on cue, a tall woman with short blonde hair approaches the podium and a hush falls over the room. Some of the other students have studied under her before and she greets them by name, and Blair feels her chest constrict because it's just like Queller or Carr (and every teacher before or after them) because she needs them to like her, to value everything she has to offer. She knows she's beautiful and rich and spoiled; she needs them to know she's smart too.

The syllabus is distributed and explained and she notes the dates her papers are due and her tests will be given, and when the lecture starts she's already scribbling furiously in her notebook.

She feels herself relax as the class continues, as the slides flash in front of her eyes and Armstrong's words lodge in her brain, and stops noticing that her hand is clasped in Sam's.

Class ends and he's still holding on.

"Go out with me," he asks, that genuine smile curving his lips.

She stares at their fingers laced tightly together, feels how easy it is to breathe. She doesn't say no.

---

Sam takes her for coffee on their first date and they spend most of the two hours trying to pretend they have something in common. There isn't much, except art history and a mutual appreciation for watching the snow fall on cold winter nights. Still, neither of them stop trying; she's not ready to give up yet.

"So," he says. "What's your opinion on Vampire Weekend?"

She blinks, then stares, and wracks her brain for what he could possibly be talking about. "Well, I'm Team Edward," she tries and hopes she chose the right answer.

It's his turn to blink and stare and for a moment she thinks he's going to get up and walk away and forget about the silly girl he took for coffee one fall day, but his face only breaks into the widest smile and his eyes fill with laughter and it's clear he doesn't want to leave her at all. "I like you," he says and leans across the table to cup her face in his hands and press his mouth gently against hers. "I've never met anyone like you. I want to keep knowing you."

Something flutters deep in her belly and she smiles against his mouth. She wants to keep knowing him too.

---

She doesn't know Vampire Weekend but she knows google, and the next morning she sends him an email thanking him for the date. Every sentence includes an oxford comma.

Later that afternoon, there's a copy of "Twilight" waiting for her at the package depot.

It stops mattering that they have nothing in common; it only matters that she likes the way he makes her feel.

---

He isn't Dan Humphrey 2.0.

He has dark hair and big dreams but he's different from the boy who broke her best friend's heart over and over again.

He takes her to local places for dinner and pays in cash and it's not what she's used to but she doesn't complain. Nate took her to every fine restaurant in Manhattan but never listened to anything she said; Chuck bought her everything her heart desired but never valued anything she had to give.

Sam reaches across a table with a paper cloth and holds her hand and doesn't try to change her. He likes her for exactly who she is.

---

She feels herself changing anyway.

She only calls Serena once a day and spends more time with Caitlin, Emily, and Jess.

She starts reading The New York Times headlines before class and stops reading Gossip Girl altogether.

She values her sleep and rolls out of bed with her hair in a ponytail, her face clean and bare. Her mother wouldn't recognize her but she's starting to recognize herself.

She gets a B on her first paper in her freshman English seminar. She cries, and throws things, and even runs a background check on her professor but stops herself before it goes too far. The next day she shows up for office hours with a new strategy in hand. "How can I do better?" she asks and writes down every suggestion her professor makes.

High school is dead and buried. She wants to keep it that way.

---

She and Sam have been dating a month when he knocks on her door with an orange t-shirt in one hand and picket sign in the other.

"The administration wants to cut insurance for dining hall workers," he says and pushes the shirt into her hands. "We're going to protest!"

"We are?" she asks. She's never done anything like this before. The last time she ran a campaign it was to take down a teacher she didn't like. She's never fought a war to benefit anyone other than herself.

She's holding the t-shirt in her hands like a horcrux but he laughs and begins pulling it over her Nanette Lepore dress. "Relax, it's only cotton," he assures her and she lets him pull her arms through the sleeves and smooth the material down her stomach. "Ready to stand up for the little people?"

She isn't ready but she thinks it's something she should do. She holds his hand while he waves his sign and chants with the crowd and towards the end she wraps her fingers around his and fights someone else's war.

Three days later the administration backs down and she emails her father a photo of herself and Sam on the front page of the Yale Daily News.

He tells her how proud he is (and how much he wants to meet the boy standing to her left) and she has to blink back tears because this time she knows he really means it.

---

Protests and petitions aren't her thing but she still wants to help people who aren't herself.

Caitlin and Emily read to school kids on Wednesday afternoons and she doesn't put up much of a fight when the ask her to come with them.

The children give her hugs and kisses and spill juice on her Catherine Malandrino skirt and she doesn't even care. Her heart constricts in her chest from the gratitude in their eyes and when she comes back the following week (and the week after and the week after that) it isn't to work on her grammar.

---

Sam isn't perfect.

He's an artist and she can't help but compare him to Aaron. They even look a bit alike, with the shaggy dark hair and lean builds, and they talk about their art in the same way and she remembers the idiocy Serena went through and it makes her want to throw things.

He spends hours in his studio he should be spending with her.

He's constantly late.

He wears t-shirts with logos she doesn't understand and doesn't find funny. His idea of dressing up is a blazer rather than a hoodie and he only cuts his hair when it's so long he can't see through his bangs.

Everything he owns is stained with paint.

He has trouble admitting he's wrong and can't back down from an argument to save his life. She remembers Ms. Carr (and the three wars she waged on her) and knows it bothers her because she does the same.

He doesn't watch TV and only Netflixes movies she's never heard of and "Flight of the Conchords." After a couple weeks, even she starts believing Australia is the enemy which annoys her because she's always wanted to visit Sydney.

He has subscriptions to The Atlantic and The New Yorker and frowns when she uses his computer to check Perez Hilton between classes.

He buys her a map of her own city when she tells him she has no idea where Ludlow Street is; he doesn't bother asking her about Brooklyn or Queens or even Midtown West because he already knows the answer.

He judges everyone and everything but he doesn't judge her.

---

Another month later and she still can't understand why he's dating her.

She's everything he hates, but he won't stop calling and she doesn't stop answering. She likes how she feels with him, like she's on the edge of the world and always about to fall but knows she won't because he's there to catch her.

He asks questions, constantly asks questions, and she finally asks him if she's some kind of psych experiment he's going to blog about.

"I want to know everything about you," he confesses. "Everyone I know is exactly the same. We look alike and dress alike and have all the same interests, and then there's you. You're from New York but know nothing beyond a ten block radius. You wear clothes like something out of a movie. You have no idea how beautiful you are." He pauses, reaches out to trace her cheek. "You don't let anyone in because you're afraid." He kisses her, soft and gentle and tender. "I want to be that person who gets through. Will you let me?"

There's a look in his eyes, like she's the only thing he can see, and she remembers the last time she felt this way, when Nate held her in his arms and told her he loved her the only way he knew how (but not the way she'd wanted ten years long), and she curls her fingers through his hair and kisses him back.

"I trust you," she says and she means it. He isn't perfect but he doesn't need to be. Nate never saw her for who she truly was but she loved him anyway; Chuck always understood her but she could never fully give him her heart. Sam is neither but he's willing to try.

He kisses her harder and wraps his arms tighter around her and she knows this is the night. They've been dating two months and it's time.

It's different with Sam. It isn't awkward like it was with Nate and she doesn't feel like she's slipping out of her own skin the way she did with Chuck, but it feels right.

She doesn't want more.

---

His friends hate her. She's too pretty and too posh, too shallow and too spoiled. She doesn't know McSweeney's and she doesn't worship at the altar of Arcade Fire. She and Serena are spending spring break in St. Bart's while they build houses in Costa Rica. She's afraid to tell them about her trip and when she does, they don't bother to hide the disgust in their eyes.

She doesn't understand. Caitlin and Jess know how she looks and where she vacations and love her anyway. It's college. It's the time to try on a few different people before choosing the right one. She hangs out with girls with bad highlights and inch-long roots and affection for clothes from Urban Outfitters. She reads Chuck Palahniuk and Jonathan Lethem because everyone raves about their genius, and keeps a David Sedaris book beside her bed even though she finds him the opposite of funny. She listens to The National and Spoon and Beirut and Wolf Parade and Bright Eyes and even likes some of them. She can quote "The Office" on command.

She pushes herself to grow; she tries to be the girl her father loves. She can't grasp why his friends refuse to do the same.

One night, a week from Thanksgiving, they're at an off-campus party and she wanders into the kitchen for another beer. There's always vodka at these things but never anything top-shelf and she's taught herself to drink Blue Moon or Magic Hat rather than choke down a Smirnoff and cranberry juice.

"Have you taken a good look at her, Sam? Her outfit tonight probably cost my entire month's rent." Blair instantly recognizes the voice. It's Jordan, Sam's freshman floormate, a lit major with a major chip on her shoulder. "What do you even see in her?"

She pauses in the doorway, out of sight but not out of hearing, and waits for Sam's response. "I can't believe you're judging her on the way she looks," he says. "It has nothing to do with why I'm with her.

"Unless you're hoping her mom is going to finance your art, I'm out of answers."

"I like her," is all he says. "She makes me think about things differently. I like who I am when I'm with her. I like that it's easy to be happy with her."

"Sam," Jordan scoffs but he cuts her off.

"She's my girlfriend, Jordan, and you're my friend. Please don't make me choose."

Jordan storms out of the kitchen and he looks up to see Blair in the doorway, paralyzed like a deer in the headlights. "Hey," he smiles and reaches for her. She buries her face in his neck, breathes him in and feels herself relax. "You heard all that didn't you?"

"Were you serious about what you said?" she asks against his chest. "Jordan was your friend long before you met me. I don't want to come between you."

He pulls back to look in her eyes. "You matter to me. You know that, right?"

Nate slept with her best friend and lied to her and tossed her out like yesterday's trash; Chuck sold her deepest secret to Gossip Girl and tried to ruin her life. Sam only wants to put her first. She looks up and his face is a blur because of the tears catching in her eyes. "No one has ever stood up for me like that before."

He smiles and dark hair falls messily over his brow. "That's because you didn't know me." He leans in and kisses her, soft and gentle and tender, and she thinks she wants to keep knowing him forever.

---

They go their separate ways for Thanksgiving.

Serena already knows every detail of her relationship with Sam but Dorota doesn't and together they fill in all the missing pieces.

She has lunch with Nate and compliments him on his tan but doesn't talk about Sam. Instead, she lets him tell her about the West Coast and she tells him about the protests and concerts and the art history major she just declared and he leans back in his chair and blinks a few times.

"What?" she asks. "Is it my hair?"

"College is really good for you."

It takes her a moment to answer and it's only the truth that spills from her lips. "I never thought my life would be like this but it's really good. I think I was in a rut. I needed to try something new."

He peers at her across the table and this time she thinks it really is her hair. "You're not going to wear Birkenstocks and stop shaving your legs, right?"

She laughs, a real laugh. "Please! I'm still me. Just because I study old paintings and occasionally wear sneakers doesn't mean I'm not the same Blair Waldorf."

Her father begs to differ. He and Roman fly in the on Thanksgiving morning and over bites of pumpkin pie he says the same thing. "You seem different, Blair-Bear. What are they doing to you at that alma mater of mine?"

She knows he means Sam but she sticks to the basics: her friends, her dorm, her classes, etc. He finally goes for broke and asks about the boy making his daughter so happy and she can't keep the smile off her face when she talks about him. It doesn't fade for the rest of the visit.

She spends the following days shopping with Serena and catching up with her mother and revisiting a world she almost forgot existed. Until she's home she doesn't realize how much she loves New York.

She has tea with Lily and brunch with Eric and Jonathan. It's not until Cyrus' driver is taking her back to school that she realizes she didn't see Chuck at all.

---

Thanksgiving break ends on a Sunday and they spend all of Monday in bed.

It's the first time she's skipped a class and she feels guilty, for half a second, but then Sam kisses her and traces the rim of her bellybutton with his fingers and she practically forgets her own name.

She realizes how much she missed him and how much he missed her and it hits her like a ton of bricks. This is what a relationship is supposed to be. This is what she didn't have all those years, with Nate and Chuck and even Marcus; this is what she's always wanted.

She wraps her arms tighter around Sam. She doesn't want to let go.

---

One night during finals she and Caitlin take a break and watch fifteen minutes of "Love Story" on TCM.

"I call bullshit," Caitlin says in disgust. "Do you really think love means never having to say you're sorry?"

Her heart constricts from the memory of Chuck breaking it over and over again. "I think if you truly love someone, you try not to hurt them in the first place."

"Have you ever been in love?"

She's never talked about her romantic past before. Her business is no one's but her own and she keeps her cards close to her vest. Nate wore her pin but it should have never been his; she never gave Chuck a thing but her action spoke louder than words. "Once," she whispers and the morning after prom slips into her mind. "It didn't work out."

"What happened?" Caitlin looks afraid to ask but the story is too juicy not to know the ending.

She closes her eyes and he's brushing her hair from her face and whispering the only three words she ever wanted him to say. "He never said I'm sorry."

Caitlin looks confused but doesn't push the conversation further. They turn off the movie and turn back to their books but Blair can't concentrate. Caitlin asked about love and her boyfriend of ten years never crossed her mind.

It's an hour before she realizes her current boyfriend didn't make the cut either.

---

Serena throws a party for New Year's Eve and it's exactly like old times.

Lily is out of town and everyone who's anyone is crowded into the penthouse and Serena traipses about with a martini in her hand, wearing a dress that's cut too low in front and too high at the knee, blonde hair spilling down her back like spun gold.

It's a good party. The alcohol flows and the food is just right and she's even happy to see the vestiges of her former life. Hazel/Iz/Penelope descend on her like couture-clad vultures and she's surprised by how much she enjoys being with them. They're still the same and she appreciates the consistency. Everything else has changed; it's nice to find something is just as she left it.

Midnight nears and she's alone. Sam is in Boston with his friends and she knows he'll call the moment the clock strikes 12:01 but she wishes she didn't have to usher in 2010 by herself.

The countdown begins and a hand grips her waist. The room is crowded and the only light is the glow of the TV but she doesn't have to see to know who it is. The ball drops in Times Square and the crowd screams and streamers burst and confetti falls around them and Chuck presses his mouth to hers.

It's not the barest touch of his lips to hers. His mouth is hard and hot and when she gasps his tongue tangles with hers. She isn't surprised; Chuck has always taken more than she's been able to give.

When they pull back her phone is vibrating in her left hand and she's breathless, flushed, and she wishes it weren't so dark so she could read the look in his eyes. All she can see is the rise and fall of his chest and the faint smudge of lipgloss on his mouth and she turns her back to talk to Sam rather than fall six months into the past.

It's the next morning before she sees him again. She's wearing Serena's clothes and leaving to change before brunch. She finds him in kitchen, barefoot and clad in a bathrobe, his hair still wet from his shower. It's bright in the daylight and there's no mistaking the pain in his eyes when he looks up from pouring coffee to find she's still in his house.

She knows she should go. It was New Year's Eve; everyone kisses someone else at midnight. Except she's Blair and he's Chuck and a kiss is never just a kiss between them.

"Why did you kiss me last night?"

He puts down the coffee pot and raises his eyes to meet hers. They're hooded and blank, but the tense set of his jaw gives him away. "It was New Year's Eve. Kissing at midnight is what people do."

"You could have kissed any girl in that room. Why did you choose me?"

He looks down and grips his mug and she can see the steam rising. It has to hurt but he doesn't let go. She knows the feeling; being with him always was exquisite torture. "There's this look in your eyes," he says softly. "I've never seen it before, not even when you were with Nate." He keeps his hands on the mug but looks up to meet her eyes. "You're happy, Blair. I wanted some of it for myself."

Her fingers tremble at her sides and she can't help but fall two years into the past, the way he stayed by her side when Nate wanted to be anywhere but with her and kissed her shoulder with such tenderness she thought she melt on contact. He has the same look in his eyes and she can't stop herself from walking the six steps between them and pressing her mouth to his.

It's over in an instant but not before his hands push away the coffee mug and reach up to cup her face. His mouth brushes against hers, feather light and gentle, and when she pulls back she can breathe but there are tears in her eyes. "I'm happy," she confirms. "I want you to be happy too but it can't be with me."

She's gone before he can protest and walks the ten blocks despite the cold. When she arrives home, her mouth still burns.

---

Sam comes to visit the week after New Year's Eve. Her family loves him. She's not surprised. There's a lot to love about him; she's well on her way to loving him too.

Cyrus thinks he's the greatest thing to ever happen to her and he immediately hits it off with Aaron. They tour his studio and check out another installation (not the Bedford Avenue Gallery) and talk art in ways that make her ears bleed but her heart happy because she loves seeing him so excited.

Serena and Nate are on vacation and Hazel/Iz/Penelope aren't important enough for an introduction so she mostly keeps him to herself. They eat at her favorite restaurants and tour her favorite stores and he doesn't say a word about the $500.00 dress she buys or the $50.00 entrees at lunch. He leans back in his chair and smiles and says he likes visiting her world. She kisses him across the table, out in public where anyone can see (but no one cares because Gossip Girl has new minions now), just to prove he's real.

She tells him about Chuck his third night in town, in the middle of "Roman Holiday."

"I kissed someone on New Year's," she says and waits for him to leave her in the dust. She pauses, sucks in a fearful breath. "It won't happen again."

"Not that I want my girl kissing another guy, but if you hadn't said anything, I'd have never found out. Why did you tell me?"

She's confused and doesn't understand. She and Nate ended because she lied to him and she couldn't stay with Chuck because he couldn't stop betraying her trust. She owes it to Sam to always be honest. "You're my boyfriend and I did something I shouldn't have done. I had to tell you."

"You're not going to do it again, right?"

She remembers the agony in Chuck's eyes when she walked away from him (again) and the way her heart constricted in her chest in ways that had nothing to do with the walk. "Never." She means it. The past is the past; she's trying to move forward.

He reaches up to brush her hair from her face. "It was New Year's Eve. Crazy stuff always happens."

He kisses her and her mouth burns but not in the same way.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	4. Part IV

**Title:** "All You Ever Wanted"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others

**Spoiler: **"Carnal Knowledge"

**Length: **Part IV of V

**Summary: **Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

* * *

**IV. Take a step before runnin'. Take a breath before you dive…**

Sam says "I love you" the week they return to school.

Her chest constricts as the words slip from his mouth, because he's Sam so they have to be true, and of all the boys she's loved in her life none of them have ever said the words to her first.

She wants to say the words back, she wants to say anything more than "that's too bad" but they get lodged in her throat as she gasps around them and it's suddenly too hard to breathe.

All she can do is ask why.

He smiles at her sheepishly and brushes her hair back from her face. "Because you're Blair and I'm Sam and it's what we do."

The words hit too close to home, remind her too much of the tears she cried the day they buried Bart (and had nothing to do with the man lying six feet under) and it's too warm and too stuffy and she really can't breathe.

She expects him to walk away but he surprises her (again) and clasps her hand in his. "Can I show you something?"

She nods, because she still can't speak, and silently follows him from her dorm room to his studio space across campus. She's never been there before. She remembers Serena, and Aaron, and the heartbreak and embarrassment that went down there, and she supports Sam's art but refuses to participate. She isn't ready for this to end.

He shows her a painting and it's abstract in the way he likes but a blind person would recognize her long, dark hair and the curve of her cheek and the sadness in her brown eyes.

"It's me," she whispers. "When did you do this?"

"It was my final project." He comes up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist, and she falls back against his chest, his heart beating slow and steady against her back. "The day we met, you had the saddest eyes I'd ever seen. I swore I'd change that." He ducks his head, nuzzles her temple and presses a kiss over each closed eyelid. "I don't know if I did, but I won't stop trying."

She turns in his arms and kisses him. "I love you," she whispers against his mouth and it doesn't burn but a feeling settles low in her stomach, warm and comforting. This boy will never leave her, not like the others.

He pulls back to look in her eyes. "I called it The Girl Who Has Everything."

She sinks into his arms and kisses him again because it's true.

---

They have their first major fight over Valentine's Day because she expects dinner and flowers and he won't even buy her a box of chocolate.

It's stupid and she knows it but she's Blair Waldorf and some things are holy. The year she turned sixteen Nate filled her bedroom with flowers and Chuck bought her a sapphire ring when he couldn't tell her he loved her but wouldn't let her love anyone else.

She expects something and gets nothing.

"It's a stupid, made-up holiday." Sam glares at her and crosses his arms over his chest. "I refuse to spend my money on shallow commercialism." It's his parents' money and she doesn't fail to point out the distinction. "Same difference," he continues. "I will not celebrate that holiday."

She throws her napkin at him and storms out of the café. She'd hate him if she didn't really love him.

She spends Valentine's Day with Caitlin and Jess and they gorge on chocolate (she pretends to – life is too good for a relapse) and watch bad chick flicks and she opens up about Nate and the decade she gave him to break her heart.

"Boys suck," Caitlin throws out for good measure while Jess goes on a rant about her high school boyfriend John and Caitlin digs into her senior year crush Dave and Blair brings up Marcus to add some real scandal to the mix.

She doesn't talk about Chuck. It's over but she's never quite sure she's over him.

---

They make up on February 16th. Sam doesn't bring her flowers or chocolate but he apologizes profusely and writes her a poem (it's bad and his ears are red the entire time he reads it to her) and she cuts him off with a kiss during the second stanza.

He touches her like she might break if he presses too hard and whispers "I love you" (once, twice, so many times she loses count) and she can't help but say the words back.

It's easy to love someone who can love her so easily

---

Serena visits the first week in March and it's been a long time coming.

Blair stopped by Providence during the fall semester and has been begging Serena to trek out to New Haven; it's taken her nearly four months to make the visit. Blair knows why and it makes her sad that her friend not only dated Dan Humphrey (five times) but is still mourning him.

She doesn't have much of a relationship with Dan. They run into each other at the library or on the quad, and Emily knows him from childhood so he occasionally joins them for dinner or a night out, but they mostly avoid each other. She doesn't miss his company; she still hates him for hurting her friend. The weekend Serena visits, Emily comes through for her and convinces him to ride the bus back to New York with her to visit Jenny and Rufus. Blair sometimes wears jeans but she's still an Upper East Side girl at heart and when Emily returns on Sunday night there's a Chanel clutch to greet her.

Serena comes right to her dorm room and knocks, hard, and spills into Blair's arms in a flurry of blond hair and hobo bags handing from a slender forearm. The girls laugh and scream and Caitlin rolls her eyes and makes herself scarce. She only knows Blair, not B, and she isn't prepared but she doesn't judge. She loves her friend just as she is.

They don't tour the town or the campus (been there once, don't want to remember it) but they do attend a party at Jordan's apartment and Blair finally gets to introduce Sam to the second most important person in her life.

He and Serena hit it off immediately and a feeling she thought long buried lodges in her stomach.

It gnaws at her, at the party (as they talk the night away) and the next morning (when they pour over Serena's Christmas vacation photos of a Botswana safari and Victoria Falls). She hangs in the background, hands clasped demurely in the folds of her skirt, and listens to the easy rapport between her best friend and her boyfriend.

She sees Thanksgiving again, Serena and Nate's shared laughter in her own house; she remembers the night she finally gave herself to Nate and he told her he already gave himself to Serena. The feeling evolves into a full-fledged ache and her chest constricts around her lungs as her heart slams into her ribs so hard she wonders how it doesn't push through her chest. It's happening, again, and she's letting it.

She tells herself it's not true. Sam is different; Sam is special; Sam is hers. Turns out that she's right; for the first time, a boy chooses the brunette over the blonde.

"Hey baby, come here," he says and she looks up from her place on her own dorm bed. Forty-five minutes and he finally notices she's alive.

He and Serena are huddled around her laptop and she leans over his shoulder and rests her chin as she takes in the photo. It's a sunrise over the savanna, painting the landscape in shades of brilliant orange and vibrant red and burnished gold. It takes her breath away.

"Wow," she whispers and turns to her friend, notes the shy smile on her face. "Serena, where did you learn to photograph like this?"

Serena shrugs, zooms in a little closer. "It sounds cheesy, but it just comes to me. It's easy when nothing else in my life is." It's Blair's turn to rub her friend's shoulder. She and Serena still talk nearly every day and she knows how hard it's been for Lily to date Dan's father while her daughter suffers in silence.

"You're amazing at this," Blair says and means it and the smile returns to Serena's face.

Sam has dinner plans for a friend's birthday so she and Serena order in Thai while Caitlin and Jess truck it out at the dining hall.

"So…." Blair has to ask. "What do you think?"

"I've had better Pad see ew," Serena says and Blair swats her shoulder.

"You know what I mean. What do you think of Sam?"

Serena pauses, twirls a noodle around her chopstick, and that feeling sinks back into Blair's stomach. "I like him a lot but I'm surprised. He's not what I expected."

"What do you mean?" Blair asks and fights to keep the anger out of her voice. Things have never been perfect in her relationship with Serena but she wants this to be. Sam has to be.

"I'm sorry," Serena sighs. "I'm not explaining this very well, but I kind of feel like you're dating Dan."

"Ewww!"

Serena laughs and the feeling in her gut is replaced with disgust. Blair thinks she might have to vomit. "On the surface, he's a lot like Dan."

"They both have dark hair," Blair protests. "They're nothing alike."

"I know," Serena says and her voice gets quiet and sad and Blair almost regrets bringing this up. Almost, but not enough to let it go. "The difference is, he might sound like Dan and like the same things as Dan and even look a little like him but he's not him. He looks at you like you're the most perfect thing he's ever seen. He doesn't expect you to be anyone but who you are." Serena isn't one to talk about her feelings but there's pain in her voice and tears in her eyes and Blair pushes away the take-out to wrap her arms around her friend.

"I love you that way," Blair says and it's true. High school was competition, a fight for the throne, but neither of them wants to wear the crown any more. B and S are dead but there's room for Blair and Serena in their wake.

They sleep together in the same bed and hold each other all night long.

---

One night in late March Sam pulls her close and tells her it's the anniversary of his brother's death.

"We lost him two years ago." He pauses and his chest trembles beneath her cheek. "My parents haven't gotten over it. Sometimes, I think we all died when he did."

She doesn't know what to say. Her only real experience with death was losing Bart Bass and most of what she remembers is the way her heart constricted when she said those three words to Chuck and he wouldn't say them back.

She goes with what she understands because no one close to her has died but she still knows what it's like for the bottom to drop out of her world.

"It's not the same, but my dad left my mom for another man when I was fifteen. I thought my life was over. Nothing has been the same since."

It's been four years since Roman stole the most important person in her life and she's surprised by the way her voice shakes. Sam hears, because he hears everything, even the words she doesn't say out loud, and his arms wrap tighter around her. "It's not the same but that doesn't mean it hurts any less."

Her father left her for another man and Nate left her for another life and Chuck never wanted her enough to bother trying to keep her. She falls asleep with head pillowed by Sam's chest, his heart beating slow and steady and constant beneath her ear. He's not going anywhere.

---

It's mid-April when Sam meets Dan Humphrey for the first time.

They're reading on the quad when he walks by with Emily and stops at the corner of their blanket.

She grits her teeth a the sight of him, but forces a smile because high school is further away with each passing day and she doesn't want Sam to know that part of her life.

She grits her teeth harder when Sam and Dan instantly hit it off. Sam has read his story in The New Yorker and Dan has seen Sam's art and if she wasn't so secure in her relationship she'd have been worried about being dumped.

When finals approach two weeks later, the boys are still hanging out but she feels a new kind of loss.

---

Summer comes and she studies art at the Sorbonne. Weekends are spent with her father and Roman (and Cat) at the villa and her free time is occupied by texts and emails and calls from Sam.

It's hard transitioning from seeing him every day and falling sleep with his arms wrapped tight around her middle, but there are playlists to fill her time and old logo-tees to guard her dreams and they make it work.

Aaron lands Sam an internship with Jacob Collins (a classicist in technique but an amazing opportunity so he takes the job and doesn't complain) and he rents a room from NYU and takes the six uptown to her neck of the woods every morning. They laugh, that he's finally a part of her world and she isn't there to guide him through it.

She flies him over the second week of July against his protests, because he hates to lose an argument but his girlfriend is Blair Waldorf and he can't win them all, and the French half of her family also falls in love. It's not as simple when she flies out to Boston the first week in August and his family greets her warily. They don't like New York (a Yankees/Redsox thing, Sam says) and they freeze up entirely when she mentions the art gallery her best friend's stepfather owns in Brooklyn, but two days in she's turned on the Blair Waldorf charm and has them eating from the palm of her hand. His mother drives her to the airport herself and makes her promise to come back for a weekend in the fall.

The plane ride to Paris is long and tiring and she pinches herself because she's Blair Waldorf and everything is actually right in her world.

~ * ~

Sophomore year goes by in a blur.

She rooms with Caitlin, Jess and Emily. They share a suite with their own bath and she takes one look at the place and calls Dorota. Within hours the bathroom is spotless (and Zusanna is on retainer) and her clothes are organized by color and designer and everything is off to the right start.

She takes a political science class to fulfill a requirement, and she's surprised by how much she likes it. Governments rise and governments fall and she can't turn away from how it all happens.

Sam moves off-campus and she spends half her time with him and half her time with her friends. She remembers when she was with Nate, a "we" rather than an "I," and refuses to be that girl again.

She's been at Yale a year and a half and her life isn't what she planned but she knows it's exactly how it should be. Two years ago she wouldn't recognize the girl she is today but it doesn't matter. She likes the girl she's become.

---

She isn't ready for May.

Sam is graduating and leaving her behind. She's not okay with either.

He tells her that Sunset Park is only two hours away and shows her an article in The Village Voice about Industry City and asks her to help decorate his loft (read: cot and plywood wall). He kisses her more and talks less and she cuts class three times in one month just to lie in bed and watch him sleep.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without you," she says and she knows it sounds needy and desperate but he's Sam and she's always told him the truth. "It's not fair that you're going to go and I have to stay."

He wraps his arms around her and pulls her flush against his bare chest. "You're going to be fine, Blair."

"I hated college at first," she confesses. "No one liked me and I didn't have any friends. I didn't belong here."

He rolls her so she's flat on her back and props himself on his elbows to cradle her face between his hands. "You don't need me to have friends and a life. You had those things before me and you'll have them after me."

She knows he's right. Caitlin let her in before she even met him, and Jess and Emily opened their lives to her weeks before art history started. "I want you too," she whispers. "Every time someone says "I love you" to me he leaves. Please don't leave me too."

"Graduating doesn't mean leaving," he says. "It means moving forward." She felt the same way, when she boarded a plane in France to land in New Haven and jump start the rest of her life. She knows what he means; she just wants to more forward with him.

He kisses her and for the first time she doesn't taste forever on his tongue.

---

She stays in New York for the summer (closer to Sam, easier on her heart) and Cyrus insists she needs something to do and finds her a place at his law firm. Her stepfather signs their paychecks but she's still low woman on the totem pole and the work is dull and the hours are long and she's surprised by how much she likes it. Patty Hewes had to start somewhere and she likes to think they're walking in the same shoes. She loves her art but law is something else; she can't draw a stick figure but she could argue with people for the rest of her life.

Sam still works for Jacob and spends most nights at her house (less time on the train, more time with her) and it's an easy routine. The days slip by and August creeps closer but she puts it out of sight and out of mind and holds him tighter.

Aaron comes through and convinces Rufus to stage a show of Sam's work the last week in September. She still doesn't trust him but she's learning to like him. He makes her mother laugh and takes care of his father and has been a good friend to her boyfriend. He's been a good brother to her. Her family has always been three and then a splintered four but she's happy to expand her New York branch to include him.

---

Junior year starts without Sam. It's hard and she misses him so much she aches but she takes his words to heart – she keeps on going.

She's still rooming with Caitlin (off-campus, with Zusanna and Handsome in tow) and takes a train into Grand Central for the show. Her dress is new and her smile is wide and only gets wider each time Sam introduces her as his girlfriend.

She makes small talk with Jenny and endures a bear hug from Eric and helps Serena avoid Dan because Sam is his friend but Serena is too and they can support him from opposite corners. Dan looks sad when ever he gazes Serena's way but she remains strong. Blair would know; it's not easy to forgive betrayal.

Aaron has a rising reputation and her mother called in a few favors and there are press at the show and they're itching to make Sam a star. Rufus has gone all out and champagne circulates on trays and appetizers keep the booze from flowing too heavily and it's only been barely a year but Blair can feel Lily's influence.

A flash of purple catches her eye and Blair feels Lily's influence in more ways than one. His hair is shorter and he's a bit taller and broader but there's no mistaking that he's Chuck Bass.

He sees her but doesn't come over and she's grateful. Sam has met the people who matter most in her life but she's not ready for him to meet the one who almost ripped it apart. He mostly stares at her with an unreadable expression in his dark eyes; it's the tight grip on a tumbler of scotch that gives him away.

Sam is talking to a reporter and Serena is busy with her brother but Rufus is free and she pastes on her brightest smile and asks him to show her around. After so many years of Blair Waldorf schemes and games he doesn't bother to look surprised that she's talking to him, just tucks her hand into his elbow and gives her a tour of Sam's work.

It's nothing new. He's only twenty-two and been on his own for four months and nearly every painting hanging on Rufus' walls are abstract portraits and landscapes she's seen before.

"How have they been selling?" she asks, just to make conversation, and Rufus grins.

"They've been flying off the walls. Remind me to thank your brother. His find brought great business for the gallery." She smiles, happy for Aaron, happy Rufus has gotten over him stealing Dan's girl. "Is there something in particular that you're looking for?" Rufus asks. They've toured the gallery twice and she can't find the only painting she needs to see.

"There is, actually. It's an old painting, The Girl Who Has Everything. Have you seen it?"

Rufus frowns and suddenly finds the floor fascinating. He's Lily's fourth husband but the love of her life; there's nothing about her family he doesn't know. "I sold it an hour ago."

"Who bought it?" she asks and her voice is higher than usual because she already knows the answer.

Rufus just smiles sadly. "He was so desperate that he paid cash. If you want that painting back you'll have to ask Chuck Bass."

She doesn't act ladylike and she doesn't say goodbye, doesn't bother to check where Serena is or what Eric's doing, just storms over to that flash of purple in the corner of the gallery.

"I want that painting," she snarls.

"Hello to you too, lover." The words aren't lost on her; the destruction that followed is always fresh in her memory. It's a hot summer night and she's wearing yellow. He tried to take something from her once before; she won't let it happen again.

"Don't talk to me like that."

He looks at her over the rim of his scotch and takes a sip before responding. "You kissed me the day after New Year's Eve. I'm only keeping things consistent."

She shudders but remains strong, focuses on what she can do and ignores what she can't change. "I want that painting," she repeats. "You have no reason for buying it."

"If you didn't want to part with it he shouldn't have put it up for sale."

He has a point but she's beyond caring. "What are you even doing here? He might be Lily's husband but you hate Rufus Humphrey."

"I've developed an interest in art. I've heard you have too." He leaves it unsaid that someone else was the one to fill in the blanks. She feels guilty. Before they were lovers and almost ruined each other, they were friends. She worked it out with Nate; she misses having him at her back.

He's won the battle but the war still rages. "I'll buy the painting from you. Name your price and I'll meet it."

"It's not for sale."

That feeling lodges in her stomach, panic and nerves and a fluttering she hasn't felt since the night she turned seventeen. "Why is a student project so important to you?"

They're all alone in the corner. There's no scotch to sip or willing blonde at his side. She has his back against the wall and there's nothing left between them but the truth. "It's a painting of you," he says softly and looks at something over her shoulder, at the opposite wall, anywhere but her face. "The look in your eyes…" he trails off. "Don't think I don't know how it got there."

"Chuck," she starts but he shushes her, reaches up to brush his fingers down her cheek.

"You don't look that way anymore but I wanted a reminder." The pad of his thumb hesitates over her bottom lip and it trembles under his touch. "I'm sorry, Blair. I'm sorry for everything."

Her heart constricts in her chest and it has nothing to do with the tight fit of her dress. She can see his eyes, even in the dim light, and she knows the yearning there matches her own.

She pulls back and it's not the warmth of the room that makes her feel as if she's been burned. "Keep the painting," she manages to say and disappears into the crowd.

She makes it half way across the room before she looks back.

---

Sam's show is a success and she wears her best La Perla matching set just for him.

He's spent enough time with her to appreciate the intricately crafted merger of silk and lace and the next morning they're almost late to a brunch Lily insists on throwing for him at the penthouse.

Chuck is there and he's sober, hair neatly combed and tie perfectly knotted, and he watches her with hooded, dark eyes over a cup of coffee. She knows he'd prefer scotch but it's Lily's house and even though she's a good WASP there are impressions to be made; drinking before noon isn't one of them. He shakes Sam's hand and tells him that he bought a painting.

"Yeah, which one?" Sam asks, all curious innocence and excitement because the only lie between them is that he's finally meeting the one boy to truly break her heart.

"The Girl Who Has Everything," he answers smoothly and her hand tightens around Sam's as Chuck's eyes never leave her face.

"I wasn't sure about putting that one on the market. It has special meaning, but that's also why I wanted to share it with the rest of the world. Why did you choose it?"

Chuck's mouth curves into the most beautiful of smiles. "It reminds me of someone I used to know."

It's impossible to miss the meaning in his words and there's a furrow gathering between Sam's brows but Lily plays the role of hostess to perfection and steps in to announce brunch.

Sam sits on her right and Eric sits on her left and he catches her up on the Upper East Side as Serena and Dan monopolize her boyfriend's time while ignoring each other.

Chuck sits across from her and won't stop looking at her. He says nothing but his silence does the talking for him.

---

They're barely inside her apartment before he starts questioning her about Chuck.

"Who is he to you, Blair?" he asks and his back is tense and his shoulders are tightly bunched and he's speaking in a voice she's never heard before. They've fought in the past but never like this. For the first time in over a year she thinks it might be the end.

Her legs feel weak because the past is finally catching up with her and she barely collapses on the chaise as her knees give out. "He's someone I dated in high school." It's not a lie but it's also barely the truth. Sam knows her too well to ignore it.

"Did you love him?"

It takes her a long moment to respond, so long the question practically answers itself, and Sam does sit but not beside her. He chooses the coffee table, so close his knees almost bump hers but far enough that she can't feel his warmth. He looks at her and there's pain in his blue eyes and she hates herself for letting Chuck Bass come between her and another person she loves. "Yes," she finally says. "It was a long time ago. We broke up before I even started college."

"That doesn't mean you stopped loving him."

"I love you," she insists and she isn't lying. She loves his laugh and the way his dark hair falls over his forehead no matter how many times she brushes it back. She loves his passion for art and the dark blue of his eyes and the way his jeans hang from his hips. She loves his terrible taste in music and tv and she loves the way he stands up for anyone unable to stand up for themselves. Mostly, she loves the way he loves her. She leans forward to cup his face in her hands. "Whatever happened between us ended the moment I met you." She bends her head and kisses him, feels him relax under her touch and watches him become the Sam she loves.

"It's over, right?" he asks against her mouth and she only kisses him harder.

"I'm with you," she says as he unbuttons her dress in the middle of her mother's living room.

It's not a lie but it's not the truth either.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	5. Part V

**Title:** "All You Ever Wanted"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing:** Blair, Blair/OMC, Blair/Chuck, various others

**Spoiler: **"Carnal Knowledge"

**Length: **Part V of V

**Summary: **Blair can't be the girl her father wants but she can be the person she's always been meant to be.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

l**Author's Note:** And thus, the saga ends. Multi-part fics are one of my greatest enemies so I'm very happy to have finished this one and within a decent amount of time. Thank you so very much for the wonderful support and encouragement.

**

* * *

****V. When you run the streets, make sure your sneaker laces they get tied...**

They end the day before Thanksgiving Break.

He chooses his timing well; he's been with her long enough to know her father will be in town to pick up the pieces.

It doesn't take her completely by surprise but it doesn't hurt any less. Since his show in September there have been fewer visits and more quality time on hold, less conversation and more small talk. He has a new life and she's not a part of it, and even when he tried to fill her in she could feel him slipping away from her through the phone line even as he whispered words of love through the static between them. He's been the most important thing in her life for two years; she can't believe he won't be hers anymore.

He takes a day off work (at a coffee shop on the Lower East Side populated by other starving artists and trust fund bloggers) and breaks up with her in person. Having him there doesn't make it any easier.

She comes home from "Collective Action and Social Movements" to find him sitting on her doorstep. He has a key but chooses not to use it; she takes it as a sign of what's to come.

"Hey baby," she manages to say even as her heart constricts in her chest. "What are you doing here?"

He smiles at her, sheepish and sweet, and holds out his hand so she can help him up. She falls two years into the past and it's that first day of art history, when he told her she was the most beautiful girl in the room and took her hand in his and opened her eyes to a world she didn't know existed. She's happy with the life he helped her build; she doesn't want to create a new one.

The door opens and Handsome is underfoot within seconds, overly excited that his mommy is home and bringing a friend with her. Sam bends to rub his head and tickle behind his ears and it's only when she drops her bag on the couch that she realizes he didn't kiss her hello. A warning bell rings in her head but she pushes it out of mind when he straightens and takes her in his arms to press a gentle kiss to her forehead.

"I've missed you," he whispers against her skin and holds her longer than usual. Another warning bell goes off and this time she can't ignore it.

She lets him hold her so tightly she thinks her ribs might crack and finally pulls back to look in his eyes; they're a deep blue and sad and brimming with tears. "It's over isn't it?" she asks and his head drops into the crook of her neck and soaks through the shoulder of her silk dress. Her own eyes are dry but she's had practice; Sam isn't the first boy to walk out of her life.

She leads him to the couch and it takes him a moment to meet her eyes. His are red-rimmed and wet and even with his hair falling across his brow she almost doesn't recognize him. "I love you so much," he tells her. "I love you so much it hurts but I can't do this anymore."

"Then don't," she says. "Whatever you're going through, I want to be there for you." She trips over the words even though she's said them before because another boy who loves her is turning down everything she wants to give.

"Blair…" he trails off and won't look at her but can't stop touching her, the curve of her cheek and the long dark hair pulled back with a headband or the tips of her Berry Hard polished fingers.

"Is it me?" she asks because it always was in the past. "What did I do?" She might not be the girl she was at Constance but she's still Blair Waldorf; fixing mistakes is second nature.

He reaches up to brush her hair from her face, something he's done so many times before, and she finally feels tears pooling in her corners of her eyes. "It's not you, it's me," he says and laughs, strangled and painful, but a laugh anyway because the line is so cliché. They've come full circle; it's only appropriate to end the way they started. "I know that sounds lame but it's the truth. Graduation isn't what I thought it would be. Every day I meet a hundred people just like me. What if my paintings don't sell? What if no one ever knows my name?"

"We'll figure it out," she insists. "That's what couples do."

He shakes his head. "I spent the first eighteen years of my life working to get into college, and the last four living the dream. It's over now and I don't know what to do. I don't know who I am." He runs a hand through his hair and it doesn't fall back over his brow. "I don't want to lose you but I need to do this alone."

"I'll help you," she promises. She remembers how hard it was those first weeks at school and how much easier it was to find her place with him at her side. She wants to do the same for him.

"I don't want to leave you but I can't stay. Please don't make this any harder."

Easy has never been something Blair has had much experience with; complicated is the only way she knows. "Do you love me?" she asks softly.

"I can't stop loving you." He smiles through his tears and leans forward to brush his mouth over hers. "I love you enough to know this is right. I know you don't want me to leave but I don't want to hold you back. You need more to your life than keeping me afloat."

"But I want to," she says through her own tears. "I want to help you." She loves him and he loves her; it isn't supposed to hurt this much.

He kisses her again and she tastes the end on his tongue. "I want you to be happy but right now it can't be with me."

He puts his hands in his pockets as he rises and she resists the urge to throw herself at his feet. Three years ago she would have begged, the way she went to Chuck when she had nothing left, because a scrap of a relationship was better than being alone.

She's not that girl anymore. She keeps her back straight and her head held high as the man she loves walks out of her life.

---

She runs home to her father and Cyrus and they alternately hold her while she struggles to come up with ugly things to say about Sam.

She can't. Hard as she tries, he didn't do anything wrong. He loved her for as long as he could and kept on loving her even though the end had to come.

There's a gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be but she can't fault him for his choice; she made it once herself.

---

She dreads returning to school but she's Blair Waldorf and she's no quitter. Her first day back, she does what she does best – she grits her teeth and endures.

Everywhere she goes and everything she does reminds her of what used to be. She walks on the quad and attends art history class and orders in from her favorite Chinese restaurant and his ghost is right beside her.

Caitlin keeps a constant supply of ice cream in the freezer and Jess buys her a Criterion collection of Audrey dvds and Emily makes a dart board with a big heart right over the bull's eye. It helps but not enough. She wishes he had cheated on her (like Nate) or never cared about her at all (like Marcus) because it hurts too much to know he still loves her but can't be hers. She understands the look in Chuck's eyes every time he sees her face because it echoes the pain she knows radiates from hers.

She cries a lot and feels like she can't breathe most of the time and it's only when she breaks down in the library (the regular library, because she doesn't want to look at cute boys any longer) that she knows she needs a change.

College has always been about reinvention but the real Blair Waldorf is still lurking beneath the surface and she puts on her best Diane Von Furstenburg dress and her favorite Sergio Rossi boots and lays out her case for why she should be able to study abroad a month after applications were due.

The plan works and she chooses Prague. Half the people she knows will be whoring and drinking their way through Barcelona and Florence and London but she needs to this by herself.

Her life is hers to live again. It's time to try on more people and see what fits.

---

Prague is cold and windy but the most magical place she's ever seen. She understands why Chuck kept disappearing into its medieval streets; she can't think of a more beautiful place to spend a lost weekend.

It's not perfect. The plane ride is long and cramped and Ruzyne is the nastiest airport this side of Miami. She disembarks with her matching Hermès luggage and takes in the people that will now make up her life. They're wearing heavy puffy coats and carrying travel backpacks and fumbling through guidebooks even though they just landed. They're not what she's used to but they're all she has.

Yale has taught her that people can be anyone but what they appear to be. If she wants them to like her she has to like them. She pastes on her best smile, a real smile, and holds out her hand. "Hi, I'm Blair," she says to a blonde girl with a freckled face and bright blue North Face parka. "It's so nice to meet you," she adds and means every word.

---

She doesn't become friends with the blonde girl (Sarah, from Massachusetts, Georgetown '13) but she does bond with Caroline and Abby from USC. They both have good highlights and better quality bags and when they tell her they know Nate she knows they'll get along fabulously.

She's right.

They book a triple at the Kolej and together battle the hot water that disappears after midnight and tweed couch cushions masquerading as mattresses and the food poisoning they all endure their third night in town.

They don't love her like Caitlin or get her like Jess or fight for her like Emily but they make the days go by faster. Caroline loves borrowing her Walter dresses and even she's jealous of Abby's seemingly endless supply of headbands. Their relationship is closer to the bond she had with Penelope/Hazel/Iz than the friendship she shares with her friends at Yale. They drink and do drugs, but they make sure she returns to the Kolej in one piece every night and don't ask about her life back home; she doesn't share. She came to Prague to get away; she isn't ready to unpack her baggage quite yet.

She walks the Charles Bridge to school each morning and buys coffee from a little stand at the edge of the Vltava. She sees plays at Narodni Divadlo and operas at the Rudolfinum, laughs at the ridiculous head shops in Stare Mesto and rolls her eyes as the tourists ooh and aah over the show at the Astronomical Clock. She and Caroline take an architecture class and spend afternoons in drafty rooms at Prague Castle or touring Tyn Church while the wind wails around them. They laugh at the lunacy of it all, laugh so hard it makes her sides heart. It makes her miss the easy intimacy she has with her friends back home but also makes her appreciate the new friends she's found.

---

She doesn't date either.

It's too much and too soon but it's also too wrong. She came to Prague to put herself back together. She can't let anyone else do it for her.

She tries not to think about Sam but he still follows in her wake with every step she takes. There are artists guarding the path between Mala Strana and Stare Mesto and she knows how well he'd fit in here. He'd love the cobblestone streets and winding alleys, the cheap beer and locals' sad-but-sweet affection for bad 80s music. He'd love that a city this old could be untouched by years of war and he'd love sketching the people populating Charles Bridge. He'd love this place as much as she does; it hurts to know she's exploring it without him.

Instead, she explores Eastern Europe with the same determination she brought with her to Yale. She stops making plans and starts living wherever life takes her. She takes overnight trains and stays in hostels and goes on vacation with three t-shirts and a backpack to keep her company.

She doesn't bring a guidebook and learns each new city by wandering its streets and talking to its people and breathing it in. She wears comfortable shoes and a money belt under her sweater and buys a puffy parka at Tesco because her Balenciaga peacoat isn't practical for a Czech winter.

She eats local food at local pubs and absorbs local flavors and practices her Czech on a cute Polish boy she meets at a milk bar. He doesn't try anything further and she doesn't want more.

She spends less time at the Globe and more time reading at Vysherad Castle. It's the seat of the mythical empire, the foundation of a people who've been conquered and oppressed time and time again but always picked themselves up and brushed themselves off and started over. She's Blair Waldorf; rising from the ashes is what she does best.

Every day she walks home over Karlov Most and takes a moment to rub the cross and stars on the statue of John of Nepomuk.

She makes a wish, hopes it comes true. She didn't come to Prague to fall in love; she came to find herself.

----

She comes home three pounds heavier but lighter on her feet.

She didn't find herself in Prague's snow-crusted streets but she can discard another person that doesn't fit.

She returns to her blue bedroom and takes inventory. She's been so many people and done so many things but there isn't enough room in her life for everything to stick.

She throws out the parka and the comfortable shoes and spends the summer in three-inch Manolo sandals or Bernardo thongs. She donates the David Sedaris books (still unfunny three years later) to the local library and sells her Beirut and Bright eyes albums for cash. The clerk at Kim's Video and Music gives her an odd look as she passes through the doors in a Rodarte dress and Jimmy Choo heels but she puts on her brightest smile and tells him to keep the change

His mouth gapes as the entire transaction but she doesn't back down.

Her mother smothers her with kisses the day she arrives home and Serena comes over for coffee and croissants her second morning in NYC and Aaron takes her to dinner her third night back. He tells her about the new installation he's designing for Madison Square Park and Amber (the model he's been dating for the past seven months) but he doesn't talk about Sam and she doesn't ask. It's been nine months but she isn't ready. She's not sure she ever will be.

It's been three years since she broke Chuck's heart and she still can't talk about him.

---

She clerks for Cyrus and one day a first year associate asks her to lunch.

His name is Ben (again) and they've already met so he doesn't introduce himself or lavish her with compliments straight out of a middle schooler's handbook and he doesn't take her hand in his, but she likes the warmth in his eyes and the way his smile lights up his face and she can't say no.

He spends the summer asking and she always says yes. It's not love but it's a distraction. She isn't ready but she still needs to get back into the game.

He takes her to lunch a few times a week and dinner on opposite days and they spend their weekends riding bikes along the Hudson and watching the Philharmonic in Central Park and once or twice she takes him to the Hamptons (in the limo, never again the jitney) and they play rounds of squash with Serena and Eric and soak up the rays with Penelope and Iz.

When August rolls around she kisses his cheek and thanks him for a wonderful summer.

"Will I see you next year?" he asks and he doesn't mean as his girlfriend.

"I don't know," she says because she likes law but it's too much to plan so far in advance.

"I think you should come back. You're really good at this, Blair. I think you could be happy here."

He doesn't know her, not really, but she takes his words to heart. It can't hurt to try.

---

Emily is a local and Jess is spending the summer working at an investment bank on Wall Street, and it's the Upper East Side and not Yale but they still fit effortlessly into her life.

She's lived in Manhattan for eighteen years and never known the city beyond the Upper East Side. When Emily beckons, she follows, and goes along dutifully while her friend takes them to parts of the city she didn't know existed – bars on the Lower East Side, art exhibits in Bushwick, a public pool on the FDR that makes her want to bathe in bleach – but she doesn't complain. This is the place she spent two-thirds of her life and she should know more than penthouse apartments and Chloe boutiques.

It's July and Brooklyn is hot and she'd rather be sunning herself at the country club but she keeps her mouth shut and her eyes open wide.

---

Serena has an internship with Annie Liebovitz (she's Serena, Blair's no longer surprised by the way her life turns out) and it occupies most of her time but results in the most glorious photos of their adventures in how the other half lives.

Her camera is never anywhere but at her side and she documents Blair drinking beer at Loreley and dancing at the Annex and sucking hard at bocce ball at Union Hall and watching the sunset on a blanket in Bryant Park.

It's a Monday night and _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ is about to play. They have food and wine and there's a gentle breeze wafting over the moviegoers and it's a perfect summer evening. Despite a Humphrey hanging between them, Serena and Emily have a lot in common and it's a relief when her worlds emerge and it's anything but a disaster.

The camera clicks in the background as Emily directs Jess to their spot in the park and Blair finally has had it. It's hot and she's sticky and she doesn't need humidity's effect on her hair documented for eternity. "Enough, Serena," she says and covers her face. "You already have hundreds of photos of me."

Serena lowers the camera but doesn't stop watching her best friend. "Did you ever think we'd be doing this?" she asks.

"We watched _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ all the time in high school."

"Maybe, but never like this. I mean, did you even know this film festival existed? We lived here our entire lives and had no idea what happened in our own city."

"I know," Blair sighs and pushes a damp lock of hair off her face. In her dreams, Dorota is standing beside her waving a peacock feather, but this is her reality. She said this would be a summer of exploration. She's determined to stand by her word. "I've been to Brooklyn so many times I can't count the number on one hand." She grimaces. "I'm trying, but it's impossible to get a cab there. I hate that place."

Serena gets that dreamy look in her eyes, the one she used to reserve for Dan Humphrey and but now has more do with the camera around her neck and spare memory stick in her back pocket. "It's why I started taking photos. I'm a girl from the Upper East Side and most of the time I'm okay with that, but I want something to show for my life. I want to prove I opened my eyes once or twice. This world has so much to offer. I want a little bit for myself." She can't resist taking one last photo, Blair in her summer dress with the last vestiges of day framing her face. "I'm going to be a photographer, Blair. It's what I want to do." She pauses and that dreamy smile reappears on her face. "It's what I need to do."

A hush falls over the crowd as the film begins and Blair lies back and loses herself in Holly Golightly's troubles and travails. She loves the wrong man and pushes away the right one and it's only when her life is truly in shambles that it all comes together.

Blair's life isn't perfect but she's not picking up the pieces either. It's a work in progress, like the paintings Sam struggled to complete those last few months together. Three years in and she's no closer to figuring it out but she's not giving up either.

---

The day before she returns to Yale for her final year of freedom and fun, she says goodbye to Sam.

She hasn't seen or spoken to him since that horrible day the previous November and she likes it that way. Absence makes the heart grow fonder but time also heals all wounds. She needed to move forward without him helping her along.

He's a little skinnier and his hair is even longer but his lips curve into the most beautiful smile when he sees her and his eyes light up and he's different but still her Sam.

He takes a break and leads her outside and just holds her for long minutes while hipsters and Chinese grocers brush past them. "I've missed you so much," he whispers into her hair and she closes her eyes and breathes him in. He smells the same even as he feels different in her arms. Some things change but nothing quite stays the same.

They sit at a table and just watch each other, the tanned length of her limbs and red highlights in her hair, the stubble coating his cheeks and the persistent smudge of paint on the back of his right hand. She doesn't know what to say to him. Two years she followed his lead like a pied piper and now she's struggling to form sentences. Awkwardness has never been a feeling she's associated with Sam and now it's creeping up in her belly in ways she can't shake. "How have you been?" she finally says.

He smiles and his eyes crinkle in that gentle way that brings laughter to Nate's face. "I'm exactly the same," he answers. "I sell coffee and paint when I can. It's not what I expected but it's a life. Aaron's been helping me. I have another show in a few weeks. Maybe this one will take off."

"Congratulations," she says and means it. She won't be there but she's happy he's finding success. He gave her so much when they were together; she only wants more for him now.

"I heard you were in Europe," he says. "How was it?"

Eye-opening? A little lonely? I thought of you the entire time? All three answers spring to the tip of her tongue but she chooses option "D." "I thought I would find myself there," she says even though it sounds cheesy because he's Sam and she always told him the truth.

"Did you?"

She shakes her head. "We both know it's not something you can do on command. I'm still a work in progress."

He laughs because she's hit the mark right on target. "Yeah. I am too."

"How's life in the big city?" she asks because she has to know if the sacrifice was worth it. He gave her up but she's not sure he gained anything in return.

His smile dims a little but doesn't fade. "It's hard. I'm still trying to figure myself out. It's taking longer than I thought but I'll get it together one day."

She doesn't feel any better knowing he's still struggling. She feels worse, feels the nine months of pain rising to the surface. "I blamed myself for a long time," she says and could kick herself for opening the wound but she's always been a masochist and this is no different. "I understood why you left but it hurt just as much."

He takes a deep breath and the smile leaves his face and it turns serious in ways she's never seen on him before. "I think you're perfect, Blair. I don't want you to ever doubt that."

It's almost ninety degrees outside and they've been over nearly a year but she can't help the tears that spring to her eyes. "Sam…"

He reaches across the table to take her hand. "It's the truth. There's no one else like you in the whole world." He squeezes, to let her know he means it, before dropping her hand to cup her face in his hands. "My greatest regret is hurting you. You know I'm always going to love you but we're not right together."

He leans in to seal his words with a kiss and she kisses him back, sweaty-faced and damp-palmed, but she doesn't feel a fluttering in her belly and her head doesn't go weak. Sam was there at the right time and the right place, but the moment is over and there's no use mulling over what might have been.

She loves him because she feels safe and secure and like she could fall off the edge of the world because he'd be by her side the entire way down. "I love you too," she says and pulls back to look in his eyes and they're warm and wet and remind her so much of Nate's that she doesn't know how she missed the similarity all this time.

She returns to Yale the next day and walks on the quad and orders in Chinese with Caitlin and Jess. The memories are the same but the meaning is different. She digs into General Tsao's Chicken (Sam's favorite) and it burns all the way down but it doesn't hurt.

---

Senior year is a lot like sophomore year; the only difference is the graduation date hanging over her head.

She's an unfinished masterpiece but she's still Blair Waldorf so she ignores it; even all these years later it's a skill she excels at.

She takes fewer classes and reads less. She spends more time with her friends and less time at the library and when she and Caitlin and Emily and Jess take photos of every party or social function they attend, she can feel their fingers squeezing harder at her waist.

The days go by quickly and she can feel her life slipping between her fingers. So many years were spent getting into Yale and when it's over she doesn't know what's left.

Caitlin has been accepted to Teach for America and Emily is going to grad school for creative writing and Jess already has a job offer at Goldman Sachs. Somehow, she's Blair Waldorf and the only one in her circle without a plan.

Law lingers at the back of her mind but it's a leap she's not sure she can make. She loves the research and she loves arguing and she loves fighting other people's battles but she's not sure law loves her. It's hard and it's work and she's still Blair Waldorf and failure frightens her more than most things.

The days tick by and finals approach and she's a semester away from adulthood and flying free with nothing to hold her down.

It scares her half to death. She's not ready to give up on fairytale endings but she knows they don't come to those who wait.

It's a cold winter day (but her Balenciaga peacoat is good enough for New Haven) and she takes a deep breath before knocking on the door of career services. She's had plans her entire life (a mom and only one dad) and futures carved out (an Oscar de la Renta gown and Nate at the Plaza) and none have come true. She's still living; she'll keep on living even if she can't do this.

"I think I'd like to be a lawyer," she says to the counselor and it sounds just right.

---

Her mother spends Christmas in Paris with Cyrus (five year anniversary, makes her want to throw up) and her father takes Roman to St. Tropez so she bunks with the Van der Woodsen-Humphreys for her break.

Dan has disappeared to Hudson to write in peace and Jenny spends most of her time holed up at FIT working on her final project so it's mostly researching law schools on her laptop and playing Wii with Eric and helping Serena in the darkroom. Photography isn't her thing but she likes the wave of peace that washes over the room as Serena mixes chemicals and brings strangers' stories to tangible life.

She thinks of the long future she has ahead of her; some day she hopes to have that peace for herself.

---

Three days after New Year's Chuck comes back from Berlin with a brunette on his arm.

Her hair is ink-black and her skin is pale and her eyes are an icy blue that provide a striking contrast to her otherwise dark coloring.

She's beautiful and he loves her. He doesn't say the words out loud, but Blair can tell from the way his fingers linger over hers and the multi-colored scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Blair," he exclaims as the elevator closes behind them and Serena pauses _My Fair Lady_ with a worried expression on her face.

"Chuck," she manages to respond even as her heart constricts inside her chest and explodes between her ribs. "Happy New Year."

She gets to her feet to greet them and holds her head high despite the sweatpants she stole from Jess and the old logo-tee she still hasn't returned to Sam and the fuzzy green socks that leave a trail of lint with every step she takes. She thought her heart would break in two when her father left and Nate betrayed her and Sam walked away from her but nothing is harder than wrapping her fingers around of the girl Chuck chose in her place. "I'm Blair," she says and smiles because she has to. She wanted Chuck to find happiness; she didn't expect it would come at the expense of her own.

"Anabel," the girl says and Chuck watches her warily. The light is dim in the apartment but she can't miss the yearning in his eyes. His hand slips from his girlfriend's waist and reaches out, for half a second and no more, before he remembers where he is and who he's with and he shivers as if he's been burned. "We'll let you get back to your movie," she continues and Blair can do little more than nod as they turn for the stairs and Chuck's bedroom.

The tears come the moment they disappear and she's in Serena's arms before the first sob can escape her chest. They order in Thai and watch more Audrey movies and when they turn in for the night, curled together in Serena's bed, sleep won't come to her.

She can't escape the image of his hand reaching for hers. She wonders what would have happened if she'd taken it.

---

Graduation comes and she has her first panic attack since the day Ms. Carr got her unaccepted to Yale.

She wakes up and she can't breathe but Caitlin is at her side (as is Xanax) and together they get through the day. There's a big group lunch after the ceremony and a private dinner with her fathers and mother and brother and they tell her how proud they are so many times she knows it has to be true.

She started high school with three dreams and only one came true but it's the most important thing she's ever done.

She's a liberal arts major with no job and no career but an entire future waiting for her.

---

The months after college ends are some of the hardest of her life.

She's surrounded herself with people for the past four years and suddenly finds herself alone.

Caitlin is teaching history in Mississippi and Emily is studying in Iowa and Jess works 100+ hour weeks and they text and email and occasionally manage a real phone call but it's not the same. She misses the way Caitlin could read her moods like a crystal ball and Emily could make her sides split from laughing so hard and Jess always knew exactly how to cheer her up.

Caroline and Abby land PR jobs and share an apartment in Murray Hill and she has a circle to call home but it's not the same. Their stories sound too much like her adventures at Constance and their friends remind her too much of Poppy and that crazy model that tried to ruin Jenny's life. They're not Serena and they're not Caitlin or Emily or Jess but they're her friends and they held her hand through that semester she laughably thought a semester in Europe would lead to self-discovery and she loves them for who they are.

Serena takes a year to travel the world with a backpack and her camera in tow and sends photos and video messages from Patagonia and Tibet and South Africa and Perth. She chronicles different people and different lives and Blair is always surprised by how much of the world she doesn't know.

She still lives on the Upper East Side and still shops at Bergdorf's and still lunches at Gramercy Tavern and still has dessert at the Modern, but one night she and Nate meet for dinner at the River Café and she's mesmerized by the lights twinkling over her city and she thinks she wants to do it again.

She has her whole life ahead of her and a whole world to explore but she takes it one step at a time.

---

Penelope marries her father's junior associate and Blair is asked to be a bridesmaid.

She stands up for Penelope, Hazel on one side and Iz on the other, and watches her pseudo-friend marry a man fifteen years her senior.

She's wearing a white Oscar de la Renta gown and the smile curving her lips is stretched so taunt Blair fears her face might split in two.

She watches from the dais, a dream sixteen years old swimming before here eyes, and is grateful the blushing bride is anyone but herself.

---

She clerks for Cyrus (again) and is a step higher on the totem pole but still manages most of the grunt work. It's rarely fun but she learns a lot and her law school applications look better and better with each passing day.

She takes an LSAT class populated by college seniors and she hates them on sight for living the life she misses so much. They ask her questions about applying to schools and what life is like post-graduation and she mostly tells them to enjoy the time they have left.

She applies to Yale (of course) and Harvard (sacrilege) and Columbia and NYU because she loves her city more with each passing day and isn't sure she wants to leave it again. She adds Georgetown and Stanford to her list and gets into both.

In the end, it's Harvard she chooses. It's not ranked number one but she's used to coming in second place.

Boston takes her by surprise. It's old and the buildings are older, and it's cold, colder than New York and Prague combined, but it's quaint and cute and the people are kind. She likes the history, a revolution that shook a nation and changed the world; she hopes to change her own world there.

She and Dorota tour apartments and find a place that likes Handsome and has enough closets for her clothes and before she even signs a lease it feels like home.

---

She won't let Harvard be a repeat of Yale.

She attends every One L mixer and organizes a few happy hours of her own so the different sections can meet.

She rarely sleeps and studies all the time but she appreciates how hard she has to work. The reading never ends and her nerves practically pop through her skin every time a professor calls her name and the entire class hinges on her answer but the challenge grips her soul and doesn't let go.

Yale was all she wanted her entire life but it never quite wanted her. She's at Harvard because of exactly who she is and what she can give. She never forgets that and she won't give up.

She comes to class early and leaves late. She attends office hours so every professor knows her name and they grow to respect rather than fear her.

She bonds with girl named Julie and discovers Princeton isn't quite a trade school; when Jules is the one to keep her sane during finals, she's grateful New Jersey has more to offer than the Turnpike and Garden State Mall.

She breaks pattern and dates a blond Georgetown alum named Shane. He can trace his lineage to J.P. Morgan and wears button down shirts and has a background in lacrosse and crew and it's kind of like dating a grown up version of Nate. He doesn't cheat on her and he doesn't open her eyes to anything new, but she feels safe in his arms and it's enough.

---

She doesn't read Gossip Girl but she occasionally graduates to Gawker and one morning there's a photo of Chuck perusing diamond rings at Van Cleef and Arpels.

She doesn't cry and she doesn't throw things and she doesn't call Shane and strip out of her clothes the moment he walks through her door.

She won't let a man define her life.

She keeps on going and workers harder to get what she wants because it's what matters to her.

---

Chuck doesn't marry the girl but he doesn't break up with her either.

She catches glimpses of them on the rare weekend she can escape to the Hamptons with Caroline and Abby.

They're always smiling and holding hands more often than not and she ignores the way her heart constricts in her chest and she tries to be happy for him.

Some day she thinks she'll be able to see him and be happy for herself.

---

Her second year, she makes Law Review and it's like every dream she didn't know she had coming true.

She's given the keys to the kingdom and it's like falling five years in the past but with a different result. The crown isn't as heavy and the responsibilities aren't so draining. No one asks her approval to wear blue tights or buy last season's shoes. They want her opinion on Con Law or her help drafting a mock brief for legal research and writing.

She likes being valued for her mind rather than her pedigree. She likes being queen when no one has to suffer on her rise to the top.

---

She stays friends with Sam.

She attends his shows and he sends her chocolate every Valentine's Day. She forwards him interesting articles from The New York Times and his up and coming design friends send her samples.

Sometimes she misses what used to be but she's happy with what she has. He walked out of her life but didn't leave her. Despite the distance between them, her blond boyfriend and his French girlfriend, she knows he'll always catch her if she falls.

As it turns out, she's the one to catch him.

---

The truth comes out, as it always does, and Lily and Rufus' long-lost son returns from the dead wearing the face of the first boy to truly love her.

He falls apart and she helps him pick up the pieces.

It's not so different from her father leaving his family for Roman, the way one little change can blow apart so many lives in one fell swoop.

She hears the news from Serena, calling from Bucharest, and the line is scratchy but she can hear the forced humor in Serena's voice.

"You always did want to become my sister," Serena jokes because it's too much to let it all sink in at once. "Eric's off the market but maybe you and Sam can get back together."

Blair doesn't think so but she plays along anyway. "Or, I can marry Eric after all and Jenny can give me pointers on playing the beard." Mentioning a Humphrey is the wrong choice and Serena gets very quiet on the other end of the line. "Serena, I'm sorry. How are you doing with all of this?"

"Dan and I have been broken up for seven years," Serena says softly. "But this is really it. We've always known we share a sibling but now he's a part of our lives. There's no going back."

Blair knows the feeling. She and Chuck were never even together and just as many years later she can't say his name without her heart constricting in her chest. "How's everyone else taking it?" she asks to change the subject, because she doesn't want to think about Chuck and his brand new brother.

"We all love Sam, but he doesn't like us. He's so angry, Blair. I've called him every day since the news but he won't return my calls. He's ignoring Dan too. I've never seen my mom so sad. You have to help us."

"Me?" Blair gasps. She's Blair Waldorf; when it comes to the Upper East Side, destruction is all she knows.

"He loves you," Serena says. "He'll listen to you. I'm only asking because we don't know what else to do. Please."

Life has always come easy to Serena but this is one struggle she can't overcome on her own. Serena has always had her back, pregnancy scares and rejection letters and boyfriends that broke her heart; it's time she had hers.

"I'll do what I can," she assures her friend and knows she'll follow through. If she's learned anything about herself since this adventure began, it's that she never breaks her promises.

---

She takes a train in from Boston and Aaron picks her up from the station.

Together they haul Sam out of Brooklyn and into the shower in her mother's penthouse. He's covered in paint and smells like a pot and booze and pain and it takes two shampoos to get the grease out of his hair. She remembers the day Jack dragged Chuck home from Bangkok and she stood on the sidelines while he self-destructed around her.

She brushes Sam's hair back from his brow and guards his dreams; she won't take a backseat role again for someone she loves.

She watches him sleep and he seems so close yet so far away. She doesn't know how she missed it all these years, the way he's all her favorite (and some of her least favorite people) rolled into one. He has Serena's eyes and Lily's smile and he dreams big like Rufus the former rock star. He doesn't judge like Dan does but he wants more from life than the status quo. He doesn't see the world in black and white and shares Jenny's passion for technicolor. His heart is big enough to rival Eric's.

He loves the Redsox like his father back in Boston and cooks chicken soup with his mother's recipe. He wears his late brother's favorite baseball cap some days and misses him so much he cries himself to sleep. His bookcase has an album of family photos from a childhood that was also a lie and a last name that isn't really his.

He's had the rug ripped out from under him and doesn't know which way is up. She remembers Chuck wavering on Victrola's roof, the emptiness in his eyes and hollowness in his heart because his father was dead and everything he knew died along with him.

She doesn't love Sam in the same way but she's been here before and learned from her mistakes. She thinks about everything he has ahead of him. She won't try on the role of wife but she will stand by his side.

---

She does it right this time.

She doesn't hover and she doesn't crowd and she only gives what he asks for.

She answers when he calls and organizes meetings with Lily and Rufus and the family and holds his mom while she cries because she tried to protect her son and only succeeded in ruining his life.

She's there for him but she doesn't push. She doesn't want him to run; she doesn't want to lose him again.

It gets better over time and during her final year of law school, she's invited to Thanksgiving at the Van der Woodsen-Humphrey penthouse.

Her mother, Cyrus, and Aaron tag along and it's the definition of awkward as so many exes face off in the suddenly cramped living room. Sam stays by her side and Aaron and Serena struggle to make small talk and Dan broods in the corner. Some things change, but some always stay the same.

Chuck arrives late with a kiss for his stepmother but no girl on his arm. He's been out of school two years and working fulltime at Bass Industries. It suits him. For the first time in seven years, she doesn't see shadows lurking under his eyes.

He surprises her when he's the first to make a toast and welcomes his new brother into the fold. For a moment she thinks it's a joke, a nasty trick like the time he compared her to one of his father's race horses, but there's an honesty she's never seen before in his eyes and a genuine smile on his face and Sam's angry and bitter but can't help but smile back.

She's more surprised when the second toast is directed at her. "To Blair," Rufus starts and she lifts shocked eyes from her champagne flute because she's know this man nearly ten years and she's never known him to say a single positive thing about her. "We haven't always seen eye to eye, but eight years to this day she brought my daughter home to me. I don't know if she remembers but it's a day I'll never forget. Three months ago, Lily and I discovered a son we thought dead and if he had a choice it would have stayed that way. Blair brought him back to us."

It's Lily's turn to pipe in. "Blair brought my daughter back to me. She kept my son's secret and supported him when those who loved him most couldn't. Today is Thanksgiving, and we invited you here for a reason. We wanted to thank you for all you've done for our family. We wouldn't be here today without you."

Her mother leans in to lay a gentle kiss on her cheek and Cyrus wraps an arm around her shoulders and Sam smiles at her and she can barely focus through the sheen of tears in her eyes.

The entire party raises their glasses and in unison thank her for all she's done. "To Blair," rings through the room and it's Chuck's voice that's loudest of all.

---

Thanksgiving stays with her and she discovers that she likes helping people who aren't always herself. New York is home but she's not ready to let go of Boston and she stays another year.

There's a legal clinic in Cambridge that's always in need of extra help and she volunteers her services. The work is hard and the hours are long and it's nothing like Patty Hewes' world but it's good enough for her.

She leaves work and her feet hurt but it's the right kind of ache.

One morning she's crossing Harvard Square and a familiar flash of purple catches her eye. She blinks, because this is Boston and not New York and the only vestiges of her old life in this city are the dog napping on her couch and the Constance tassel hanging from her desk lamp.

She notes the sway of his walk and the scarf wrapped tight around his neck and even if he was wearing a brown paper bag she knows she'd recognize him blindfolded. He's been imprinted on her heart for ten years; she couldn't look past him if she tried.

He sees her and she skids to a halt in her Christian Louboutin suede boots, feels the wind whip around her as he comes closer.

With each step she finds it harder stay upright and it's becoming a habit, the way she falls years into the past every time they're breathing the same air, but she can't help the way her palms dampen and her dress feels tight and the air is suddenly too warm the moment he locks his eyes with hers.

She feels seventeen again and the butterflies in her belly come to life with a start.

"Hey," is all he says and she says the same in return. He's too close, too warm, and she can't concentrate long enough to say more.

"What are you doing here?" she does ask after a moment, after the cold air brushes over her cheeks and she can focus long enough to form full sentences.

He smiles, a smile not a smirk, and it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. "I turned twenty five last year and took control of Bass Industries." He gestures to the university sprawling behind them. "I thought I should have some idea of how to do it."

"You're in business school?"

He nods. "Class of 2018."

This time she's the one to smile, really smile, because he's twenty-six and he isn't dead in a gutter. His tie is perfectly knotted and his hair is freshly brushed and he has a future ahead of him. Deep down inside, she hopes there's a place for her too.

"I'm really proud of you," she says and it's true. Eight years ago she walked away because he held her down; today, she thinks he'd hold her up.

"I did it for you, you know," he tells her and she shakes her head because she didn't know. "You left me because you needed to find yourself and I let you because I needed to grow up." He takes one mitten-clad hand in his and presses a gentle kiss to its back. "We're inevitable, Waldorf. It was only a matter of time."

"What about Anabel?" she asks and her heart constricts as the girl's name leaves her mouth but she has to know. They've come too far to go back to where they started.

His hand reaches up to trace the curve of her cheek. "We broke up six months ago. What about you?"

"Over. They're all over," she says and it's the truth. Shane has been out of her life for over a year and Nate is her friend and Sam is caught somewhere in between but never the presence he was before.

"It's always been you," he says softly and when she raises her eyes to meet his she could swear there are tears lurking there. "Since I've been sixteen years old, I've never felt butterflies the way I do when I'm near you. I love you."

"Chuck…" she starts but her cuts her off with a kiss.

"Three words, eight letters," he says against her lips. "I've said them before but it wasn't right."

"I love you," she whispers and it's been almost a decade since she last uttered the same words but they don't meaning any thing less.

"I don't care if you aren't ready," he says. "I'm tired of waiting."

She feels like she's standing on the edge of the world and she isn't sure there's someone to catch her if she falls but it's time to take a leap of faith. "Then don't," she says and kisses him again.

She's still a work in progress and there are some things she needs to do alone but she likes the idea of reaching the finish line with someone at her side.

* * *

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